Souvenirs of Space

It’s been so long without really any contact, without any sight of her face, that my heart could’ve been aching for a lover staying on the moon, and not one beneath the same stars I look up to. I only really feel that Caroline is back when she enters the familiar orbit of my arms, and her head fits comfortably in the crook of my neck, the final piece to my puzzle. She feels the same, but her hair smells foreign – a new conditioner, most likely, bought somewhere that she went, but I entertain myself with thoughts of souvenirs of space brought back with her. Maybe she thought of me as she plucked them from the black mystery that surrounded.

Her real souvenirs take another form – tales. I take her by her hands gently and lead her to the sofa, gesture for her to sit down. “Tell me,” I tell her. “Tell me everything I’ve missed.”

It starts, of course, with the threat of our end. A few weeks ago, something began to go wrong between me and Caroline. At least, that was when it became evident that something was awry. These few weeks ago, Caroline reminded me of a certain promise we had based our relationship off for many years: when we first got together, Caroline had confessed that once she gave her heart away, she feared it being returned too quickly, too easily, without much attempt to keep it. Back then, we’d each made a promise to not allow our love to fade away, become history, without a fight: if something was to be fixed, we would try and fix it, whatever it took. Caroline and I are not the sort to break promises; those few months ago, when Caroline reminded me of that promise, she asked that I not break it – and be patient whilst she set out to find herself. Out there.

It's odd, isn’t it? You might think someone crazy if they wished for time so that they could look for themselves. But it made sense. Maybe Caroline and I had been together, been one, for so long, we’d began to forget who we were as individuals. Self-love has always been something Caroline struggles with – maybe Caroline just needed some time to think about herself in different ways and situations, to figure out who she really was in the universe. Maybe we’ll never know, but we agreed: it’s always worth a try, and I trusted Caroline. If she felt that her own feelings and knowledge of herself was what was bending our relationship – it probably was.

And I couldn’t deny that I sometimes felt a little lost myself. So, I stayed behind. Thought of myself. Thought of her.

She left my arms, and me, to go places. I didn’t know where, but neither did she. Now she tells me: first, a place of almost permanent sunlight, golden and blinding. Beautiful beaches of sand rolling out like a glistening carpet to meet the sea, equally as vibrant. The grass, sky, shops, boats, people, were all a fiesta of color. She took one of the littlest boats out – a little yellow one, the Solano – just her alone. The sea was blissfully calm, softly rocking her from side to side all the way out and back. She gazed out at the horizon and closed her eyes; the way the light bounced off the water left an imprint on her eyelids, and she imagined fantastically she was sailing across the sun itself. “It was gorgeous,” she assures me. A place born of sunshine.

“Tell me,” I tell her. “Did you have fun?”

She did. How could she not? It was lovely and warm, and she couldn’t look in any direction – nor even close her eyes, it seemed – without being confronted by all things beautiful and bright. There was also a certain thrill to being alone, she said. Did I feel that way, back here? A bit, I think. But it came mostly from thinking of you somewhere out there, smiling at something I’ll never see. Caroline had the Solano for the day. I wonder if, as she lay back in the boat to gaze instead at the clouds, she thought of me at all. Did she wish I was with her? I would have liked to imagine myself sailing across the sun. That each of the other happy boats situated at intervals closer to the shore were the planets – we’d point out each one and marvel: Jupiter would be especially pretty to me, but Caroline’s eyes would be caught by Venus. I saw it all as if I’d been there.

Next stop, after staying awhile on the sun, swimming and sunbathing and suchlike, was a place Caroline struggles to describe. Hazy – unnaturally heavy with fog, so that the lights were all faded – partnered with an air of impossibility. “It was just a town to stay the nights in whilst I explored nearby,” she says, “but it felt so much bigger.” The clouds were just passing over, lingering, dimming everything. Like witching hour. “I still don’t know how it could’ve been so close to the sunlight-place.”

“I don’t know either,” is my reply. “But did you do all you wanted to do there?”

That brings a laugh. “If you mean sleep, then yes. I didn’t want to do much else.” The beds at the inn were light, the coverlets slipping between Caroline’s fingers like space. It’s like she went to the sun first, and then to the Milky Way. I mention this to Caroline and she laughs shortly again – but it’s so eerily accurate that we both give each other this look, and then erupt into laughter. I feel as though the easy humor we had before is coming back.

After sleeping, Caroline described how she asked the innkeeper what there was to do locally. Everything, apparently; whatever that implied. Caroline didn’t know – doesn’t know – whether he was being funny, so she just smiled politely. ‘Everything’, in fact, seemed to imply just getting lost a hundred times over – “Don’t you smirk at me! You should try getting out of that labyrinth!” Did you wish I was there so I could’ve? I want to say, but I don’t.

The longer Caroline remained, the more she seemed to notice the oddities – even when the clouds did pass overhead, the light seemed muted, dulled: like a strange membrane or film was encasing the sun, filtering its rays. This contrasted totally with the unwavering shine she’d experienced not very long ago, although there was still a phantastic allure to it. She was not afraid. The location, ultimately, was intriguing; it was almost entertaining to get lost in it, explore the jungle of beautifully painted murals depicting alien events – local legends, most likely. A human twisted to swallow its legs as a crowd watched in delight; birds with realistic eyes on the end of each feather, painted so they seemed to perch on the rooftops; a heroic three-armed soldier protecting the town from an undefined evil. These brought out a type of appreciation in her, one of simply being, that she hadn’t felt in a while. Caroline seems to repaint them all just as artfully with words as if she were an artist, brush in hand.

She eventually found a street with a charming cluster of shops, almost dapper with their sleek black paint coating. Not long later, she had hiked up a small mountain – the town had been at the foot of it, supposedly – and set up the tent she had purchased. “I wanted to sleep under the stars for a few nights, to finish,” she tells me. “I’m so glad I did. Could you see the shooting stars from back here?”

I could not. But I promised her, I looked up every night. I could get away in the daytime doing other things, trying to find myself a bit whilst she looked for herself out there, but come nightfall, I found myself most pleased when out on the balcony. It’s always a comfort, when someone you love is far away, to think of them as under the same sky you are.

“Well, I saw them. There were so many I lost count. And before! – the sunset, I’ve never seen one so lovely, nor one so long. The sky never once faded to black – when the stars rushed across, it was like nothing I’ve thought possible.” She is staring fixatedly at my eyes; they are sparkling, and her voice is rich with passion.

“Tell me: was it everything you wanted to find?”

She’s quiet, thinking, or maybe just catching her breath. I realise just how much she has spoken, especially compared to me. I’ve just been so happy to hear her voice, her accent and the soft cadence of it a cleansing remedy. I let the silence stretch luxuriously. It doesn’t feel broken. We don’t feel broken. Finally, she answers, choosing her words hesitantly: “In… part. I do think a part of me… was out there. I don’t know. So, in part, only.”

“What are you missing?”

Like she didn’t hear me, although she is watching me just as attentively as I am watching her, she resumes her tale. The sky, like she said, did not once go black all the night, and the sunset bled miraculously into sunrise. She saw it as she walked back down the other side of the mountain, and again, and again, as she camped and camped on open plains until she reached civilization again. Returned home. To me.

“I left a part of myself here. I had to come back for it. A full loop.”

“What?”

“You asked what I’m missing.”

That brings her back into my arms. I inhale the new scent deeply again, think of her space souvenirs. The sunlight-place, the labyrinthine town, the phantasmagoria meteor shower and sunsets that bled into sunrises. “Darling Caroline,” I tease with mock-seriousness, “are you sure you were away on Earth?”

We both laugh. Whatever was wrong between us before seems to be gone and we laugh for quite a while, until we fall apart from our embrace and just sit and grin stupidly at each other. It’s impossible. Of course, she’s sure.

I mean – where else could she have been?